


Encompass Worlds, But Never Try to Encompass Me

by jenni3penny



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 13:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19020748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni3penny/pseuds/jenni3penny
Summary: Updated and cross-posted from my old LJ fic account. Written years ago for a 'Before the District' challenge. Ann & Toby meet for a drink somewhere between his marriage and the White House.





	Encompass Worlds, But Never Try to Encompass Me

She bets herself the balance of a drink that if he'd married someone other than Andrea Wyatt, she could have wiled him away. And she orders another bourbon, while he's watching her in the sadly delicious barlight, declaring herself the winner of a silent wager.

"If you'd stayed with Claudia...I'd have had better chances." Her hand falls flat on the table, along with the heavy weight of her words, with the half drunken spill of her thoughts.

Toby only gives her a masked smile and a hushed "I doubt it."

"I don't." Ann stubbornly circles one finger against a knot in the polished wood, knowing he's watching the twist of her wrist. She knows his weak spots, his kinks, his bend-enough-and-break spots. "CJ Cregg would have sent you running at some point. Running in a direction that would have led to me. Or to someone else."

"And Andrea doesn't?"

It seems to her that he likes this line of questioning, that it's mildly satisfying. Even if he knows that she's only saying it to turn his thoughts over and around, something about it strokes his ego, strikes his attention.

It's as though he likes that she's trying to know him, that at least she's trying to pretend. Because he doesn't believe that either of them will ever know each other, not really. She's learned enough of Tobias Ziegler to understand that he keeps secrets like loose change, jumbled together and deep in his pockets.

Ann gives him a half laugh, sounding the fake ring of it through the hotel bar. "She draws you in Toby, she pulls at you so tightly, without even trying."

***

She leans in when the waiter swings their way, his hip flared toward the table while he flashes a peek down the barely buttoned linen of her shirt and passes along her drink. Toby wonders at the twinge that jealousy owns in his stomach when he catches her leaning forward, surprised by its existence. He feels his jaw tighten and he tries to look from her, willing the fisting of his hands away.

He doesn't understand the pang of possession he feels for her. He doesn't know how it fits in his relationship with his wife, or even with CJ (way back when, he can't even _remember_ how long). He's uncomfortable still being emotionally attached to three women, and she knows it as the younger man jaunts away. She's mirroring the exact same displeasure in her fresh (fake) smile and expensive bourbon.

She lifts the glass and he feels his stomach sway at the bitterness in her tone. "She's got you pinned Tobias - in a way I thought only I could. Congratulations to her."

He's honestly not even sure which other woman she's referring to anymore.

He's not sure she even knows.

"You're drunk Ann." The cut in his words rakes almost as angrily as the hatred that had laced hers only moments before.

But there's a shine of gray in her eyes that says she's more sober than he'd thought, "That's when I do my best work. In a dark room with exquisite liquor and a second rate speech writer who can't seem to win an election."

He can't do anything more than swallow because she's treading on his version of the truth, tipping the line with her fourth drink and squall colored eyes. 

***

"Come with me," she says, her voice nipping at the base of his skull, enticing and cool on his sweating skin. "I've got a room upstairs."

He shakes his head once, the movement curt and brief. "I'm married now, Ann. Let it go."

Her eyes dare him to fight her and he gets tangled in the recognized glance, the memory of movement when she turns and tips her jaw. She's never given in to him, never given up. He thinks it's maybe because he's never tried to buck her authority (she _always_ had all the authority). When she'd wanted his mind, thoughts, body...it hadn't mattered. She had owned him.

Now she was trying her best to claim her possession and he was using the name of another woman to shield himself. He wasn't sure how well it was working, though. "Andrea is - "

"Andrea Wyatt isn't stupid Toby." There's a sudden spit of frustration to her words and he feels like maybe he's won some small battle in the middle of the war. Tide-turning-time. "She knows what you are. Just like I know what you are. We're the same Toby."

"She's nothing like you." He takes her drink from her when he stands, swallowing the last spattering of good alcohol in all of Illinois.

"The two of you? It won't last." She leans back into the chair and he watches her head tip so that she's still holding his glance, blonde hair falling away from him. He can't break from the wisdom she's staring him down with. "You and I, Toby? We're the same."

Her statement forces a wince over his shoulders. He decides that it's the only other concession he'll give her, it's the last white flag between them.

***

She's almost got him an hour later, plied with the best and brightest booze in Chicago, pushed against the jarred door of her hotel room. Her nails dig on the worn leather of his belt and _almost_ , with her mouth against his unshaven jaw.

"No."

At first she doesn't think he means it. Because at first… he _doesn't_. She only knows that because she's memorized the flickers in his words, every trip and twist of the language he worships. She knows every inflection and intonation of his too soft, too proud, voice.

She tries to ignore him, tries the let the words fall into her hair and stay lost, but he gets louder every time he says it.

Again. " _No_ , Ann."

His palms are tight on her wrists and it's the first time, she thinks, that he's ever _really_ denied her.

"Damn it Toby." That denial is an invasion (deliberate, unavoidable) and her pleading voice does nothing to him anymore.

She's seen this moment in the bottom of a glass, like a third rate hustler, telling fortunes.

She's bet herself that it would happen.

Well… now she's done making bets.


End file.
